That's right, I kinda wish the Raiders would just lose out. Esp. given the way the Colt’s ‘Suck for Luck’ campaign seems to have worked out rather well for them.

Unfortunately, tempering this desire is the knowledge that, historically, any similar effort by the Raiders is unlikely to work out … given the graphic they showed in the game about the Raiders top 10 draft picks over the past 7 or 8 years … it contained the likes of DHB, Buchanan, McClain, Huff, McFadden, etc. When they brought up the point that not ONE of these players was deserving … the point was irrefutable. Sad, but it cannot be denied. Unfortunately, I think the problem is that Al pretty much 'lost it' in his later years.

And as much as I'd like to believe that DMac is in a different realm from those others, the fact is … his injuries put him squarely into the ‘bust’ category, given his status as a #4 overall pick. The talent is clearly there, but the durability is just … not.

Furthermore, as we both know, it doesn’t get much better in the immediate years before that either … it would’ve included Gibson, Nap Harris, and other busts if it went back for 15 years. And in the 2nd round we often picked guys like Porter ... that's when we didn't trade them away for FA's that turned out to be busts on our team.

It’s easy to blame people like Knapp and Allen and Palmer for the Raiders current woes, and to some extent, they ARE to blame.

But ultimately, the league gives bad teams every chance to ‘get back into it’ and encourage parity with the way the drafting system is set up. If you’re totally honest with yourself, painful as it is … the Raiders are where they are because Al Davis completely squandered the opportunities to draft well that were offered to him over the past 10 years. There’s not one single player the Raiders have drafted with their first round draft picks over the past 10 years or so that would even be in the discussion for the category of ‘Great’ NFL player, let alone in the HoF discussion.

Guys, I've told y'all I love the man (lots of you guys saw all my ticket stubs last year, tickets that were from Al’s box, remember that?), but the fact is, we are where we are because Al completely lost his football acumen over the past decade (or two). To deny this is just homerism, IMHO.

On a positive note, I forgot to tell you guys … As of about 1 month ago, my little brother Jordan is marrying Tony La Russa’s daughter (and ex-Raiderette) Bianca :)